House holds off vote to exit fight in Libya

WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, 74 days after U.S. forces joined the military operation in Libya, President Barack Obama seemed to run out of goodwill on Capitol Hill.

A group of both liberals and conservatives, defying the leaders of both parties, threw their support behind a bill to pull the U.S. military out of the Libya operation. That prospect led GOP leaders to shelve the bill before it came to a vote.

That episode signaled how abruptly the politics of U.S. war-making have changed, as the intervention in Libya follows a bloody, weary decade in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, a Democratic president has asked the country to support a new military action and missed a legal deadline that required him to get Congress' authorization.

In response, an anti-war movement has appeared in an unlikely place: a House dominated by the Republican right.

"We are in control in the House, and we want something on the floor," said Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., one of a number of conservatives who called Wednesday for a showdown with Obama. "Put a resolution up, and let us express ... to the president that you no longer have the authority of this Congress to conduct military operations in that country.' "

Since the beginning of the Libyan operation, congressional leaders have been quietly supportive of Obama - but mostly just quiet. In the Senate, a resolution in support of the president is still waiting for a vote.

In the House, GOP leaders had said little on the subject, even after Obama missed a deadline set in the 1973 War Powers Resolution. That law required him to obtain congressional permission within 60 days, a deadline that passed last month.